Nero: Made Men novel · Chapter 5 of 24

Chapter 5: The Panel

The disciplinary panel met in the headmistress's boardroom, at a table long enough to hold a funeral.

Three teachers sat on one side.

The headmistress sat at the head, a gray woman with reading glasses on a chain.

At the foot, in a leather chair that didn't match the others, sat Chantal's father.

He was a trustee of Harlow, with a silver tie pin and a face.

"Miss Gilligan," the headmistress said. "You are charged with assaulting a fellow student."

"With scratching her face," Chantal's father said. "My daughter will have a scar."

"She'll have a scratch," I said. "She had five people holding me down."

"Miss Gilligan, wait to be asked."

"I was asked," I said. "The charge is assault. I'm answering it."

One of the teachers looked down at his notes to hide his mouth.

Chantal wasn't in the room.

Two of her friends sat in the corridor on a bench, staring at their shoes.

I had my bag on my lap and a pen I wasn't going to use.

"The other side has a statement," the headmistress said. "Do you have any evidence?"

Katia had gone through my door at six that morning with her laptop under one arm.

"Don't say anything until I'm in the room," she had told me.

She wasn't in the room, and I looked at the clock.

Then the door opened, and she came in with her glasses crooked and her red hair on end, out of breath, with a tablet held in both hands.

"Sorry. Sorry. Parking."

"You are...?" the headmistress said.

"Katia Rusek. Her roommate. I filmed it."

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